Such an idea is altogether too vast and high for us adequately to comprehend. At the same time, it seems to imply certain things that are beyond peradventure. God must have foreseen, for instance, that He would make man. He must have foreseen, too, that man would fall. He foresaw, also, and arranged, the great scheme of Redemption. But He must have known with the utmost certainty that millions and millions of the human race would pass out of this life without once hearing the joyful sound. And because they did not know it, if annihilation or torment is true, He knew that He would utterly extinguish them, or consign them to everlasting fire! Now, can you think of a Being of Infinite Wisdom doing either? Apart altogether from the idea of Love, could you think of Infinite Wisdom acting in this way? Would you not think it as a most horrid stigma on human wisdom, and infinitely more so on Divine? To think that God made the human race, at the same time knowing well that the vast majority of the race would come to such an end--an end which they could not forsee nor prevent! Is that the way Infinite Wisdom would act? The idea seems almost blasphemy. Yet that is what you must believe if you accept the idea either of annihilation or of endless torment. More than that. Consider that the Creator endows every one of the race with mental powers of almost infinite expansion; yea, better still, with moral powers and affections akin to those of the angels. Then consider that in the case of most, these divine powers were to be extinguished, and that the unfortunate beings who had been endowed with them were to pass back into nonentity, or be cast into everlasting torment. In the one case there would be utter abortion; in the other, there would be everlasting development of evil. Could you conceive of anything more unworthy of Eternal Wisdom? Still more. God foresaw and arranged the great scheme of Redemption. That it was to be available for the whole race was divinely intended. We are told again and again that God gave His Son for the world. It is said that He "tasted death for every man." But God did not take means to apply it to every man in this life. He could easily have done so. He could have sent His angels to proclaim to men the good news of salvation. Such an idea is not so far-fetched as at first sight it may appear. We follow the same principle when we send missionaries to the heathen. Oceans were formerly almost impassable. There is still more or less risk, both from the voyage and the climate and the hostility of savages. We may well suppose that angels could pass more easily from star to star than that man can pass from continent to continent. And all the savagery of evil men could have no effect on angels.